Black men need to speak out against Donald Trump

4th January 2016   ·   0 Comments

By Frederick H. Lowe
Guest Columnist

Black men cannot stand idly by as Donald Trump, the Republican candidate for president, advocates shutting U.S. borders to Muslims because they may be terrorists or sympathetic terrorists groups like ISIS.

Before his headline slamming Muslims, Trump went after black men, including President Barack Obama.

In 1989 in New York’s Central Park, four African-American teenagers and one Hispanic teenager were convicted of assaulting a white woman jogger.

After the five teenagers, now men, had served up to 13 years in prison for a crime they didn’t commit, Matias Reyes, a serial rapist, confessed to the crime. Reyes’ DNA matched semen on the victim’s clothing.

New York City agreed to pay the Central Park Five $40 million for their wrongful convictions. Trump, however, became irate. He and his floppy hair claimed the five — Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam, Kharey Wise, Raymond Santana and Antron McCray — didn’t deserve compensation.

Twenty-five years prior to the settlement, Trump demanded the death penalty for the Central Park Five after they had been arrested and convicted. He got his message out by placing full-page ads in New York City’s papers.

After attacking the Central Park Five, Trump went after President Barack Obama, claiming he was not born in the United States and was therefore he not eligible to become president.

President Obama obtained a certified copy of his birth certificate, showed it to the news media to shut Trump up. But the damage had been done. Millions of Americans still believe the President is not an American citizen.

If Sen. John McCain had defeated Obama in 2008, there would have been a cause for concern because McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone, which has never been a state; therefore he could not have been president.

I know it is difficult for black men to show empathy for some immigrant groups.

After all, they move to the United States, get jobs, start businesses and live middle-class lives while our unemployment rate either goes up or stays the same generation after generation. In addition, they discuss over dinner how we are dangerous and how much they dislike us. Some immigrants seem as though they just graduated from a Klu Klux Klan boot camp.

I see this every day. I was walking down the street near my home and an Indian woman wearing a sari was walking towards me.

She ran to a street pole, grabbed it with both hands and began swinging her legs around to kick me if came near her.

I know she learned this from her parents, siblings or her women friends. I had never seen her before and I haven’t seen her since. I walked to edge of the sidewalk far away from her and continued on my way.

I was pretty pissed off. I am sure she didn’t even speak English, but she had learned that the color of my skin meant I was dangerous.

I think immigrant groups are dangerous for their thinking but I strongly believe Trump is much more dangerous because the media listens to white men, rarely questioning what they say.

The media does question Trump’s beliefs, but they continue to broadcast every comment he makes, which boosts his poll numbers, putting him closer to the Oval Office.

This article originally published in the January 4, 2016 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.